Lesson 7 – How to name the notes that are in a Major or Minor Scale correctly

In this lesson, we are going to learn about how to name the notes that are in a Major or Minor Scale correctly.

Each musical note on the Piano can be named with at least 2 names; but how do you know which one of the names to give to a Musical Note? Before I answer this question, I will like to say that from a practical point of view, it actually doesn’t matter what name you choose to call a musical note as long as that musical note can be called that name. So, for example, from a practical point of view, it actually doesn’t matter if I call a musical note A# (pronounced as “A Sharp) or B flat since both names are actually referring to the same musical note i.e. the note A# will produce the same sound as the note B flat on the Piano. But from the point of view of how things are actually done in Music, what determines which name a musical note is called by is the key that you’re playing in i.e. the Major or Minor Scale that you’re playing in. Whenever you want to name the musical notes in a Major or Minor Scale, you must follow the 2 rules below :

Rule 1:

The first note of the Major or Minor Scale must be the same as the name of that major or minor scale. For example, the first note of the D Major Scale must be the note D because the name of the Major Scale is D. Let me give you one more example; the first note of the E Major Scale must be the note E because the name of the Major Scale is E.

Rule 2:

You must make sure you name the notes within a major or minor scale in an alphabetical order by using only the musical alphabets i.e. A , B , C , D, E , F , G . Also, make sure you only use each letter of the musical alphabets once to name the notes within a particular major or minor scale. For example, the first 3 notes of the C Major Scale are C , D , E and the 4th note of the C Major Scale will be named as F instead of E# because the third note of the C Major Scale has already been named with E and we don’t want to repeat the use of the letter E to name another note that is within the C Major Scale again. So, the point here is, if you’ve used a letter to name a particular note that is within a major or minor scale, do not use that letter again to name another note that is within the same major or minor scale.

Let me give you an example in order to illustrate what I’ve said in rule 1 and in rule 2: if you want to name the musical notes that are within the C# Major Scale, the first note will be the note C# ; the second note has to have the letter ‘D’ in it since D comes after C in the alphabetical order. You have a few options of naming the second note of the C# Major Scale with the name ‘D#’ or the name ‘E flat’. You will have to choose the first option of naming the note with the name ‘D#’ because you have to follow the alphabetical order i.e. the name of the second musical note of the C# Major Scale must have letter D in it since the letter D is after the letter C in the alphabetical order. So, if you were to name the C# Major Scale in the correct way, the names of the musical notes in the C# Major Scale would be: C# , D# , E# , F# , G# , A# , B# , C# 

You can use these 2 rules to name the notes that are within the other Major and Minor Scales correctly. I hope this blog post has taught you how to know which name to call a musical note from the point of view of how things are done in Music.

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